I received my tickets a bit late to the Sifted Summit, and so I hadn’t paid much attention to the pre-event communications. It would only give me FOMO and as far as I knew, I couldn’t make it to the party.

‍

So when Martin Coulter mentioned the overarching theme was resilience in a post-lunch panel, it was the first I’d heard of it. But it made absolute sense - it wasn’t one of those themes that seems nebulous and irrelevant to the content being shared.

‍

Resilience came through in all the panels and sessions we saw on Day One, and the founders who took to the stage didn’t hold back when it came to the challenges they’d faced...

‍

“My daughter drew a photo of our family at the beach and I wasn’t in it. When my wife asked her to add me, she said she couldn’t as Daddy would be at work.” - Theso Jivajirajah, Co-Founder and Chief Risk Officer at credit card startup Yonder“

‍

"In 2022 we brought on 3 huge enterprise clients just before Christmas, and Royal Mail went on strike. I worked 20 hour days for 2 weeks straight in our warehouse.” - Murvah Iqbal CEO & Co-founder of logistics start-up HIVED

‍

“I’d be sitting in investor meetings saying things were tough, and I found out someone was messaging my other investors that ‘Samir is done’. - Samir El-Alami, Founder and CEO of health software start-up doctorly.

‍

“Notion copied our product and launched it, so we had to fast track our product launch to four days. We then also had an alleged security breach go viral online. It wasn’t true, but we had to manage the fall out.” Christopher Pedregal, Founder and CEO of AI workplace app Granola.

It’s hard to walk away with anything other than admiration for the people who choose to start their own company. While the wins can be big, the challenges can also be rough and the timing of business dramas doesn’t cater to anyone’s personal life.

Work life balance also cropped up in many conversations, with the 9-9-6 phenomenon not far from anyone's mind. While it felt like a few choice soundbites might fall from this topic, perhaps unsurprisingly most founders didn’t reel too aggressively at the concept. 

‍

Long days and long hours are part of the process, and the overarching sentiment broadly was, “we’ve all been there”.

‍

Sprint when you need to and rest when you can. 

‍

But Work Life harmony, and the joy of having a job you love seems to keep most founders going through the tough parts. And for those who can see the value, high performance athlete coaches seem to give founders the much needed counsel they need when it comes to balancing everything all at once.

‍

Leah Sutton from Balderton Capital shared some refreshing support they offer founders via their Founder Wellbeing Platform to help them perform at the highest level. Better support for health, nutrition, and crucially sleep seem to pay dividends for Balderton’s investments, proving that care for founders is being built thoughtfully and proactively.

‍

In the words of the great Dr. Seuss, “You have to be odd to be number one” and it definitely takes a certain type of person to be a founder.

‍

But with all the failed fundraises, security breaches, insolvencies, and sleepless nights, it’s heartening to see so many people still here, on stage, not just trying but failing and succeeding in equal measure.

‍

In the words of Christopher Pedregal in his panel on navigating the start-up to scale up journey “If you don’t see yourself as a resource that needs to be optimised you’ll be a point of failure”. 

‍

So after Day One my biggest lesson is to look after yourself…not just for your health, but for the sake of business optimisation.